A Terminal Case of the Wantsies
These are all things that I want. You should want them too.
ornery, adj.
Definition: Of bad temperament, cranky
Example: If I don’t have at least seven cups of tea a day, I get quite ornery.
The Story: This ITP’s WotITP comes to us from Battle - yay! Whilst we were engaging in some delightfully amusing wordplay (it’s like sex, but for those of us who’ve been together for several years), Battle wondered if ornery were possibly related to the ‘bird words’ of the ornitho- type. I said, ‘I don’t know, but I can find out.’ So here we are - they are not, in fact related, though ornery has a pretty neat etymology! It dates back to a 19th-century American English pronunciation of ordinary (think of how a stereotypical Old West guy would say ordinary) - yes, this is the same ordinary that you’re familiar with, the one that means ‘commonplace’. This ornery underwent a slight semantic shift (a change in meaning) where ordinary/commonplace > poor quality/ugly > mean/nasty. Personally, I think this kind of language change is one of the most fascinating - take a look at the word nice sometime…you might be surprised!
P.S. I know no one cares, but it occurred to me that it wasn’t really fair to link to the OED with these WotITPs, since not everyone will have access to that. So from now on, I’m going to try to link to a different OED - the Online Etymology Dictionary, which is just as legit as the Oxford English Dictionary, with the added benefit of being free to use…so you can pop on over there and check out the origin of the word nice! Do it! Right now!
(Source: etymonline.com)
Me: Can you say the word molecule for me?
Friend: Molecule.
Me: Okay, now what if I spell it ‘mollycewel’…say that.
Friend: Okay…why?
Me: I need to know if there’s a difference in pronunciation.
Friend: Again, why?
Me: Well, it helps me decide if Sean O’Casey spelled it that way because he meant it to be pronounced differently, or if he spelled it that way because he was using eye dialect to show that his character is uneducated.
Friend: Hmm…there’s a third option here.
Me: What’s that?
Friend: Well, have you ever considered that perhaps O’Casey spelled it that way because maybe he was fucking illiterate?
Me: Oh fuck. Well, it does say here on the back of my copy of Three Plays that he ‘never went to school but received most of his education, he tells us, in the streets of Dublin.’
Friend: I rest my case.
I really tried to capture his facial expression.
perfection.
Every time I see this I think “fuck you, I like my make-up and pretty clothes.”
Oh lordy, this cracks me up…so long as I try to ignore the implication that the only reason a female human being would ever bother to care about her appearance is in order to attract a male human being. Also, Space Guy - lay off the Photoshop and winsome looks…you’re creeping me out.
blindfold, v. and n.
Definition: to cover (some)one’s eyes with a cloth; a cloth used to cover (some)one’s eyes.
Example: Why don’t you blindfold me and we’ll see if I can tell the difference between a Dos Amigos burrito and one from Chipotle?
The Story: The other night in bed, I was reading and I came across the word blindfold and for some reason, it stuck in my head. On a whim, I asked Battle where he thought the word came from and he responded that he’d always assumed it came from the act of folding a piece of cloth to cover someone’s eyes with. I said, ‘Aha! I wonder if it does!’ and then I said ‘Remind me to look that one up tomorrow.’ And it turns out that truth is more interesting than folk etymology!
Blindfold started out as a verb and was then ‘nouned’ in the 19th century (all you people who hate verbing…it goes the other way, too!). It is an alteration of the earlier word blindfelled - it’s entirely possible that blindfelled became blindfold precisely because someone thought the same thing that Battle did. At any rate, blindfelled became blindfold because of the similarity in sounds. The blind part here is pretty obvious, but the felled/fold part is pretty interesting. See, the older meaning of blindfelled is ‘to strike blind’, and that fell is the same fell that we use when we say ‘to fell a tree’, as in ‘to strike a tree and cause it to fall’. Ta da!
Oh man…now the word blind looks so weird to me. My brain keeps wanting to read it as ‘blihnd’, with a near-high near-front unrounded vowel (as in the word ‘kit’). Blihhhhnd. Mmm…sounds like a Norwegian dessert.
(Source: etymonline.com)
You had me at ‘bolt action tactical pen’…and then you lost me when I realized that the ‘bolt action’ was just for clicking the pen in and out. Seriously - defensive weapon? I don’t think so. That’s why I always have a pair of shortened knitting needles on my person. And they don’t need a bolt action.
theherooftimespast asked: I read your post about finally beating the final boss because the Wii was "too crappy to recognize you were trying to do a Skyward Strike". Uhm, in the final boss battle, I don't think you CAN use the Skyward Strike. It's all dark so there's no light for the Strike to charge up. Just wanted to see if you knew that :)
I think perhaps either we’re talking about two different boss battles or I’m referring to the move wrong - I’m talking about the final battle with Demise at the end of Skyward Sword (the one where you’re up in the sky or whatever with him), and I’m talking about the thing where you have to hold the sword perfectly vertically. You definitely can and probably have to do those in the second stage of that battle - they actually charge up significantly faster during the battle, and Demise prepares one of his own almost as soon as you start doing yours, so it’s a big pain when it doesn’t go well!
Then you should sign this:
If not, then don’t! But I would, if I were you, because it always sucks when you’re like, oh, I’d love to read that article and it’s all like, lol, you need to pay to read that article, and I’m all, but a) I’m a poor student, and b) I paid for that research to happen!
I finally got up the courage to fight the last boss in Skyward Sword*. Battle had been bugging me to for months, but his appearance is just so intimidating! So woohoo! I’m finished! I shall celebrate by eating this brownie right here!
*read: I finally got up the courage to fight the last boss in Skyward Sword, got through all but the last stage of the battle, got frustrated as shit by how crappy the Wii is at recognising that I’m trying to do a goddamn Skyward Strike, threw the controller on the floor, and went pee, during which time Battle finished it for me because he knew I’d just throw a temper tantrum if left to my own devices. Go me!
